203: Sunday 7th August 2011

Today I checked my email and found that my friend and enterprise colleague in the display venture had actually got my display working on command. Cool, he has put a temporary logo on the display for demonstration purposes﻿. Next step is to rig up the battery monitor circuits so I can then work out how to display the information on this display. First I need to figure out my friends PIC chip coding..... ;o)

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Had a bit of a mishap! I have been monitoring the battery voltages and found one to be a bit lower than the others, but then I noticed it had kind of melted a bit. I swapped this one out with another that I have been conditioning. It was showing better voltages, but still went down below 10v when the pack was done. This was due to severe imbalance. I have swapped this with the one running the 12v system as the demands are much lower and it may perk up yet. I did some test runs and the 12v system is holding its own still and the battery is getting conditioned too. I found another of the batteries is also reading quite low. I am hoping to get a set balance nicely soon so I can achieve some respectable mileage. I am getting a fairly reliable 10 miles with the imbalances. I hope to get this up above 15-20 miles soon. If I cannot get this right soon, then I am going to need to bottom balance the batteries and charge them all up together and hopefully this will bring them in line a bit more and also get the maximum charge in them.

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While I was doing this work I noticed the batteries hissing while on charge and then I realised I had not put in the tubes for venting the gases when charging. In this photo you can see the network of pipes linked across the top at the front of the batteries.

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Here is a closer photo of the tubes connecting the charging vents.

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About Me

I am an automotive Engineer with a background of electrical and electronic engineering.
My interest in converting cars to electric is to preserve modern classics by adding electric drive thus reducing maintenance and improving driving. I like being green, but prefer the thrill of the torque when driving electric cars. Most electric cars are either cheap and ugly or good looking but too expensive. I hope to fill some of the middle ground before the major manufacturers get their fingers in.